Jails cutting back on menu

Inmates at Franklin County jails lost their doughnut privileges four years ago, their free coffee last year, and now they're about to lose lasagna.

Robert Vitale, The Columbus Dispatch

Inmates at Franklin County jails lost their doughnut privileges four years ago, their free coffee last year, and now they’re about to lose lasagna.

Sheriff Zach Scott said yesterday that some costlier frozen meals are getting furloughed from jail menus to save money — and the cheaper stuff will be appearing on prisoners’ plates more often.

“We’re not cutting out anything that was required,” Scott said. “It’s the luxuries.”

After all, the sheriff added, “it is jail.”

Franklin County expects to save at least $400,000 a year with the tweaks to its jail menus. That’/ / / / / / / / / / s more than 15?percent of the $2.5 million annual jail-food budget.

Scott said the jails will start repeating meals every seven days, which will save money because the county can buy a bigger volume of fewer items. Menus had been planned to include five weeks of meals without offering the same entree twice.

Officials plan to get rid of costlier frozen meals, such as lasagna, cabbage rolls and stuffed peppers, and they will make meals such as spaghetti and tomato sauce on their own instead of buying them already prepared.

Coffee got the boot about a year ago, said Chief Deputy Sheriff Mark Barrett, the jail administrator. Prisoners at the Downtown and Jackson Pike correctional centers still are able to get their fix, but it’s the decaffeinated, powdered, instant variety, and it costs them 50 cents.

The jails stopped serving doughnuts in 2007 after county commissioners questioned the nutritional and financial value of what had been a $55,000 annual expense. Danishes remained, but Scott said they’re now being eliminated as well.

The meals remaining include burgers, pizza, chicken patties and turkey, according to Hal Rhoads, food-services manager for the Jackson Pike jail.

The county will offer prisoners the bare-minimum 8?ounces of protein a day that is included in dietary standards. Prisoners had been getting as much as 12 ounces daily, Rhoads said.

He said dietitians reviewed the county’s plans to make sure prisoners will get the proper nutrition.

Scott said the cost of each meal will drop from $1.01 to 82 cents. The jails served inmates more than 2.4 million meals in 2010.

“We want to make sure they’re taken care of properly,” Scott said. “But I don’t think the public wants us giving them gourmet meals.”

Franklin County still will spend more to feed its prisoners than some other Ohio counties.

Cuyahoga County spends 74 cents per meal to feed prisoners in its jails, sheriff’s office spokesman John O’Brien said. That’s down from 80 cents per meal in 2009.

Coffee has been off the menu in Cuyahoga County for a while now, O’Brien said. It’s not sold in jail commissaries, either.

Ohio prisons still serve coffee, but flavored, noncarbonated drinks were eliminated in the most-recent state budget. In 2009, the state combined breakfast and lunch on weekends.